I don't mind running; I don't mind taking a few knocks. But hopefully, it's just not 'Sam's an action dude.' That, to me, is not what I wanted. I wanted to bring a sense of weight and emotionality of doing Australian films and bring that into a bigger blockbuster, so you're not just kind of grunting and groaning and running around.
I have very strong relationships with my actors when I'm shooting. When you love an actor's work, you always feel you have to go further, and you make several films together. One film just gives you time to get acquainted.
I don't really look like I do in any of my films.
I enjoy doing martial arts films, but I like the straight stuff, too. I'd like to go back and do some Shakespeare, and maybe knock out a play or two. It's all about keeping balance.
From my side, I don't put pressure on the director to cater to a certain image. I am happy to do different films, and I have to stick by my director. I like to completely surrender myself to the director - that way, I think, I don't get to do the similar roles.
We have actors from other films, from 'Baywatch,' and so on, and these people are looking exactly the opposite of what they are. The transformations were so smooth, and so funny to watch, it was unbelievable.
I do want my films to have the required entertainment quotient, but I'd prefer doing films where you don't have to leave your brains behind.
I financed and made my own films from the start. My path has been autonomous and independent, so I don't have any horror stories about glass ceilings and expectations and tense studio meetings.
Personally, I think the silent films were more effective for L&H, but the sound was of great value in enhancing the effects - dialog eliminated a lot of action & sight gags - I always feel that 'action' speaks louder than words.
My films don't have instant impact because they're dense with ideas that people have not thought about. It takes a while for the American public to wrap its head around some of the things I'm saying.
I don't really expect much from my life. So when I heard my films are premiering in film festival circuits I was glad of course but I thought it was lucky accident.
You work with the communities to make films. And you just don't go in and take over their territory.
I first played the Royal Albert Hall when I was 14. I was a violinist with the Birmingham Schools Concert Orchestra, and we travelled down from the Midlands for the last night of the School Proms. We played some pieces from the Harry Potter films, and the violin parts were really hard.
I dreamed of doing stuff like Will Smith and films on a big scale.
When 'American Pie' happened, I was so lucky to get that opportunity and I just tried to do a good job in that genre. But the films that inspired me as a kid were, like, Malcolm McDowall in 'A Clockwork Orange.' He was my hero.
When I was a kid, I saw 'Rambo First Blood', and the next day, I took knives to school and threw them at everybody. So I was definitely influenced by violent films before 'Drive.'
My favorite way of making films - and what has allowed me to get key scenes in 'Cartel Land' and 'City of Ghosts' - has been when I've been able to operate alone.
There was a golden era in film-making in Hollywood back in the 1970s, and although there is some great independent film-making in America, it's actually very hard to get independent films made in the United States. It's much more feasible from Europe.
Bulking up for the Twilight films was one of the hardest things I've done... I had to give myself a lot of pep talks, as there was just so much gym time.
I vividly remember watching women in films when I was nine or 10, picturing them being what I'd be like as an adult. I had these real female crushes on certain actresses. And I'd watch them, thinking, 'One day, I'll be that. One day I'll be a woman.'
Commercial movies have no feeling, no sensitivity. Most people tell me people won't understand films with feeling. But everyone can feel.
There's very few people who want to just make beautiful films that make money, when they can make films that make huge money.
I don't know about relationships. Maybe I'm supposed to travel and make films and meet people and have adventures instead.
I'm just trying to up my films - how every film should be better than the previous one. That's what I struggle for.
The only movie that I would ever even consider retrofitting is the first 'Jurassic Park,' which I think would look pretty spectacular in 3D. That's the only one of my films that I would consider doing in 3D.
I see myself starring in and producing major feature films.
There's some freedom that you get with indie films that you don't get with the big-budget ones. There's just a different style. I hope I can switch back and forth for the rest of my career, but I've kind of grown up on indies, and there's nothing better than working with these directors so closely and and being such a huge part of the process.
A lot of the scripts I read and the characters I get are 'the girl' in romantic films, and I don't know how comfortable I am, or the world is, with me being that.
The way that we're consuming what we watch. Netflix, binge-watching, destination agnostic were not terms. It was about networks, times, dates. Even with feature films, you had to see it this way, in this capacity, at this time. All that has changed. Now it's really about the story. It's a gift that I became a storyteller at this time.
Strange - I'm not much of a film person. I love watching films, but they don't stay with me the way books do. Stranger still, because my husband is a screenwriter!
My feeling is, I do a lot of low-budget films. I don't do low-budget acting. I have no interest in just goofballing my way through, thinking, 'Ah, no one's ever going to see this anyway.'
In Quebec, we're less inhibited artistically, culturally, politically. We're less focused on box office and comparing our films to the American films.
I haven't done a lot of studio movies, but studio movies and independent films are always just as fun as each other.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
When it comes to remaking my own films in the English language, I can only imagine that it is a very boring process, I wouldn't ever dream of it.
When I got out of school, I didn't really understand the differences in the different aspects of the business. For example, doing a play - where does that take you versus, you know, concentrating on independent films? You might have one thing in your head, but the things you're doing don't really lead down the right road, necessarily.
